COT102 insecticidal cotton

Abstract

The present application relates to an insect resistant transgenic cotton plant. In particular, it relates to a specific event, designated COT102. The application also relates to polynucleotides which are characteristic of the COT102 event, plants comprising said polynucleotides, and methods of detecting the COT102 event. The COT 102 event exhibits a novel genotype comprising two expression cassettes. The first cassette comprises a suitable promoter for expression in plants operably linked to a gene that encodes a VIP3A insecticidal toxin, useful in controlling a wide spectrum of lepidopteran insect pests, and a suitable polyadenylation signal. The second cassette comprises a gene which, when expressed, can be used as a selectable marker.

The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. A primer pair for detecting the presence of COT102 nucleic acids in a biological sample, the primer pair comprising a first primer and a second primer designed to bind to a polynucleotide comprising at least 20 contiguous nucleotides of SEQ ID NO: 1 or SEQ ID NO: 2 when said polynucleotide is single stranded, wherein the first primer and the second primer, when used together in a PCR reaction, produce an amplicon that is indicative of COT102 nucleic acids. 
     
     
       2. The primer pair according to  claim 1 , wherein the first primer is designed to bind to a COT102 insertion sequence and the second primer is designed to bind to a flanking genomic DNA sequence downstream of the 3′ end of the COT102 insertion site or to a flanking genomic DNA sequence upstream of the 5′ end of the COT102 insertion site. 
     
     
       3. The primer pair according to  claim 2 , wherein the first primer has the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 3 and the second primer has the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 4. 
     
     
       4. The primer pair according to  claim 2 , wherein the first primer has the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 19 and the second primer has the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 18.